Starcraft: Remastered's Development Team Talks Challenges of Remaking Classic

By
Christian Holt

Even classics need renovations from time to time. After 19 years of zerg rushes, sellout tournaments, and an entire esports scene, on Monday, Blizzard is releasing a remastered edition of its iconic game. IGN talked to Robert Bridenbecker, VP of Tech Strategy at Blizzard, about the challenges updating a revered giant in the RTS genre.

“Starcraft is arguably the grandfather of esports,” explains Bridenbecker, but even he may be underselling the influence of Starcraft on the esports scene. With esports tournaments, casters, players, and entire leagues built around the game during its heyday, Starcraft isn’t so much a game as an institution.

No one was more surprised about the game’s success than the developers. “Go back to 1999, seeing those esport tournaments in South Korea, we were pretty blown away.” Back then, he and his team thought of multiplayer as a few people playing over LAN. “We didn’t expect 100,000 people in a stadium.”

Remastering Starcraft means resurrecting that esports scene.

Remastering Starcraft means resurrecting that esports scene.

To do so, Bridenbecker and his team had a tall task: preserving a game experience players were used to while updating the game to modern system requirements. “As the game has aged, the core gameplay continues to be great. But it wouldn’t run on Windows 10,” explains Bridenbecker. Certain aspects of the game-- the lack of matchmaking, the 4:3 aspect ratio, etc-- haven’t aged well. So they wanted to see what they could do to update the graphics, adapting the game to more modern operating systems, and joining the community to Battle.Net.

“It’s definitely a balance,” Bridenbecker admits. “The game that was originally designed has been enjoyed for so long. We can't assume that we’re the know it alls.” That’s why Blizzard sought out contributions and feedbacks from the fans, often journeying to South Korea to consult with the pro scene there. “We wouldn't be doing this without the community. We’ve been in lockstep with them,” Bridenbecker explains. So that gave the team a better understanding about what they should and shouldn’t mess with.

The guiding principle: “Don’t Break Starcraft.”

He points to the Dragoons having certain pathfinding issues as an interesting problem they opted not to fix. Players now anticipate that behavior, so to change it wouldn’t be a beneficial. He says with a chuckle “It’s not what we were shooting for in 98, but since it's been part of the game, it’s become expected.” Instead, they viewed these kind of movement bugs as features. “Tread cautiously,” he explains. “After twenty years of patches, we’re not going to mess with that.” The core gameplay mechanic has been baked over the last twenty years.

In addition to allowing players to change between the classic 4:3 aspect ratio to HD widescreen with only the click of a button, Starcraft Remastered features a plethora of other visual upgrades. The water effects are much improved, the units are completely redone, and you can zoom in and out throughout the battlefield. “When a dragoon shoots, you’re seeing the shot across the ground and seeing a radiant effect” in the environment, explains Bridenbecker. But if you don’t like these new effects, you can turn them off. “We joked we were going to call this the ‘Starcraft: Ultimate Options Edition,’” explains Bridenbecker.

"Starcraft: Ultimate Options Edition"

The upgrades don’t end at the visuals; Starcraft Remastered brings Starcraft into 2017 when it comes to social functionality. In addition to a much-needed matchmaking functionality, players will be able to chat over Battle.Net with their friends who are playing Overwatch.

“Community” was a word that Bridenbecker repeated more than any other in our conversation. He spoke about connecting Starcraft fans to the larger Blizzard community, about thanking those same fans who supported Starcraft over the years, and finally, how Starcraft Remastered is about connecting those fans together in new and exciting ways.

“It comes right down to: there is one really big Starcraft community. Whether you're playing [Starcraft] one or two, we want to make sure you’re engaged and happy. That you can enjoy [these games] on today’s machines.” Bridenbecker wants to ensure the community is set up to enjoy Starcraft for the next twenty years. To that end, on Monday, Starcraft has announced a huge Starcraft Remastered launch event featuring many personalities and players from the Brood War-era of Starcraft’s esports scene. The launch LAN-party is broadcasting on Twitch on Monday from 12pm to 9pm PDT and will feature hosts Sean “Day[9]” Plott and Nick “Tasteless” Plott with players Legionnaire, Draco,G5, Nyoken, Ret, White-Ra and feature Dan 'Artosis' Stemkoski and Geoff 'iNcontroL' Robinson.

Excited for the event? Can’t get enough Starcraft news? Sound off in the comments!